From Silicon To Software

Researchers forecast that by 2025 we’ll see approximately 8 million autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicles on the road. Before merging onto roadways, autonomous cars will first have to progress through six levels of driver-assistance technology advancements. What exactly are these levels and where are we now?

The Motor Industry Software Reliability Association recently announced it is merging its C++ guidelines with AUTOSAR. Will this unified standard for safety-related code development be enough to safeguard the future of the connected car?

Attackers often take advantage of the complexity that comes with balancing greater end-user convenience with traditional security. Behind that cool and responsive interface of an IoT device is millions of lines of code and superfast processing. The weakest link is something basic — a faulty implementation of a protocol, or a lack of a trusted security zone on a chip. Exploitation, in either case, requires very little skill. Thus, a lot of the attacks today are carried out not by criminals with elite skills but those with very basic programming skills.

In the automotive world, recalls for electronics affect about five percent of the vehicles on the road. That means 5 out of every 100 vehicles today have a problem with their electronics. If we want to see more autonomous driving vehicles, that number must be improved. There needs be more robustness in the development process.

To better understand the challenges ahead for fully autonomous vehicles, research teams over the last few decades have attempted to automate the process of driving. But early successes have not yet given us truly autonomous vehicles. Why?

Cellular carriers would like to have their new 5G networks up by the end of 2018 or early 2019. One problem: they need a set of standards to create the new technology. Last weekend, tech representatives met and made significant first step for technology companies to start building out the necessary 5G chips and software.

Dr. Luca Amaru, Synopsys R&D engineer in DG’s Logic Synthesis team, has received the prestigious Donald O. Pederson Best Paper Award. The paper, “Majority-Inverter Graph: A New Paradigm for Logic Optimization,” was co-authored with Pierre-Emmanuel Gaillardon (University of Utah, Salt Lake City) and Giovanni De Micheli (EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland). It appeared in the IEEE Transactions in Computer-Aided Design (CAD), the reference journal for technical papers in this space.

At the heart of the very cool intelligent connected vehicles (ICVs) of tomorrow is sophisticated software with artificial intelligence and powerful silicon chips all working together. These technologies will transform the traditional automotive supply chain from a mechanical-driven world to a digital one, where the user experience, reliability, safety, and value are created from silicon and software. It will allow OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers to further differentiate, and do so quickly. It also introduces, if done poorly, additional risks to privacy, safety, and reputation.

5G holds the promise of a mobile-first experience with blazing-fast downloads and seamless streaming. 5G cellular service will be the first step. But 5G goes way beyond smartphones. It aims to transform wireless technology and deliver a new digital infrastructure for the world of connected everything. It will serve as the catalyst for mainstream adoption of autonomous vehicles, virtual reality, augmented reality, and smart cities. Some experts are lauding 5G as the next Industrial Revolution. But what exactly is 5G?

It might have been a deleted scene from one of the Ocean’s Eleven movies. Data thieves hack into a major casino. They attack not through the main but a secondary network and, once inside, bootstrap their way into other parts of the casino network until they get lucky and find a cache of sensitive data that they proceed to steal.

Melissa Kirschner is Web Editor-in-Chief at Synopsys. She has been a writer, editor, and content strategist in high-tech for more than 15 years. Melissa is fascinated by the socio-cultural implications of the digital age. When not researching AI, autonomous driving, 5G, cryptography, and medical advancements, she enjoys reading the works of Neil Gaiman, watching dystopian dramas, and rescuing abused animals. Most of all, she likes to write things that people like to read.